Construction Quality Assurance/Quality Control Blog

How to Prepare Your Inspection Test Plan

An Inspection Test Plan (ITP) is a commonly required document that you'll need to submit with your construction quality control plan. Whether you're working on a private sector or government contract, clients today all want to see your inspection test plan. They want to know exactly what inspections and tests you'll be forming to control quality on their project.

In addition to telling your client what inspections and tests you'll do to control quality, your ITP is also a checklist for you to log the results of your inspections and tests during the project.

So what should you include on your inspection and test plan anyway?

The following 5 tips will help you to create your inspection and test plans:

1) Before you can start, you'll need an inspection test plan form. Click on this link, and you can download one free from our website: Inspection Test Plan Form.

2) Complete the form by, first, adding your task inspections. List a task inspection for each Definable Feature of Work (DFOW), also known as a construction task or a phase of work.

3) Now, add your milestone inspections. These are inspections at the completion of each major piece of work. For example, this could be at the completion of a foundation or each floor in a high-rise.

4) Next, look at your project specification, and add the required inspections and tests from it.

DO include tests that you hire an independent testing agency to perform.

DO include inspection hold points.

DO NOT include inspections conducted by your client, as that is their own quality control, not yours.

5) Finally look in the Division 01 General Requirements section of your specification for any special inspections to add to your inspection test plan. These could be such things as field assessments and final closeout inspections.

Click the image on the left to see the first page of a completed Inspection Test Plan.

Once you have a good template and know what to include, putting together an inspection test plan becomes very straightforward.